Medical examiner: Man shot by deputies orchestrated suicide

OREGON CITY, Ore. — The state medical examiner’s office says a man fatally shot by Clackamas County deputies Sunday appears to have orchestrated his shooting as a suicide.

Investigators said they encountered 34-year-old Bruce Steward in the town Colton after they got a call reporting a stabbing.

But deputies didn’t find a stabbing victim. Instead, they said, they found Steward with a hatchet, and when he advanced on them refusing to put it down, deputies shot him to death.

They found later that the false report about a stabbing came from Steward’s cellphone.

Dr. Larry Lewman, a deputy state medical examiner, says Steward died of gunshot wounds to the neck and chest. The Oregonian reports that Lewman is judging it a case of what he termed “suicide by cop.”